


Quicksand

by untitledminds



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Writing & Publishing, Enemies to Lovers, Humor, M/M, Rivalry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-10
Updated: 2016-08-20
Packaged: 2018-08-07 21:41:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 16,042
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7730761
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/untitledminds/pseuds/untitledminds
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Do Kyungsoo firmly believes that there is a thick line between love and hate.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. part i

**Author's Note:**

> written for [kaisooaufest round 1: no one dies this time](http://kaisooaufest.livejournal.com/23501.html)

 

There are many places Kyungsoo would rather be on a Sunday morning.

Standing in an empty five-level office, teetering on three hours of sleep and whatever caffeinated drink he could find, is not one of them.

The entire department is still scattered with the forgotten mess that usually comes with the rush to leave work at the end of the week. Kyungsoo wouldn’t know; his life knows no weekends and his makeshift workplace at home permanently looks like it has been ravaged by a hurricane of category four.

He stands beside Baekhyun, his editor and closest friend since selling his life to writing, as they wait in front of his computer for the release of this month’s bestsellers list.

“Any minute now,” Baekhyun’s voice is laced with anxiety, excitement and anticipation. The moment the digits on the corner screen clock switch to nine o’clock, his index finger slams down on the key to refresh. Sure enough, the list is out, printed in bolded black down the centre of the page.

At first he thinks he’s still dreaming, stuck in a trance that feels a little like reality. The title that vacates the top spot isn’t the novel he spent months slaving over.

“No,” he whispers when his eyes flit to the book ranked second. The all too familiar words with his name sitting innocently next to them crushes his heart.

It’s safe to say that Kyungsoo is dedicated to his career.

He is incredibly hardworking; pumps out at least one book on a yearly basis and they always sell out in every bookstore. Reviewers commend him on his world building and storytelling, noting that he is a breath of fresh air in the Young Adult genre. Even though the targeted audience would drink in any story with shallow characters and cliché plots, Kyungsoo focuses on making every novel an elaborate journey.

In all honesty, Kyungsoo hates the fact he needs to slip in overused tropes occasionally to ensure his books still appeal to his fans and sell. He always tries his best and takes extra care to a put a different spin on them and make sure he is far removed from the scorned genre. For someone who writes stories that could be hailed as legendary in a genre that is generally looked upon with disdain, Kyungsoo thinks that he is very deserving of his recognition. The only thing he hates more than being forced to write stereotypical scenes and plot points is when his hard work yields no fruit.

He hears Baekhyun gulp behind him and push himself away from the table, ready to placate the author’s oncoming wrath.

“It was his comeback after three years.” Baekhyun’s eyes fly to every corner of the room to make sure there are no fragile objects that Kyungsoo can against the wall and smash to pieces. “This was to be expected.”

“Not really,” Kyungsoo seethes through gritted teeth. “It was absolute shit as always.”

 _White by Kim Jongin_ mocks him through the screen.

Kim Jongin.

Never let Kyungsoo hear his name, unless you want him to go on a rampage and a thirteen minute and fifty-three second rant about why the highbrow author doesn’t deserve all the recognition he receives.

Kyungsoo, as he would argue, has perfect reason to hate Jongin, for he himself is a talented, acclaimed author (forget the part where he writes Young Adult) who writes brilliantly plotted stories with immaculate and mostly complex characterisation. Jongin, on the other hand, strings together words he thinks will look and sound pretty together, creates four hundred pages of prose that makes no sense and calls it ‘art.’ First press publication always come in millions and he will claim number one. Kyungsoo thinks this is complete, utter blasphemy. Kim Jongin is a grave abomination to the literary world.

Despite his claims and vivid demonstrations of hostility towards Jongin, there are still people who find it necessary to remind him that there is a very thin line between love and hate. They think that the relationship between the two authors is a real-life depiction of that overused trope and cliché plotline (Kyungsoo may or may not have also been guilty of utilising it) where arch-nemeses end up falling in love

Once, Baekhyun had the audacity to say, “If this were one of your books, wouldn’t you and Jongin end up together in the end?”

As a threat, Kyungsoo didn’t write for an entire week, until he had Baekhyun breaking down each individual hinge on his door and kneeling on the floor and desperately taking his words back.

“Honestly, I have lost faith in the world,” Kyungsoo declares. “If they’re going to be brainwashed and fall head over heels with Kim Jongin’s mess of literature, then I don’t even want to be first place.”

“Hey, we’ll get it next time.” Baekhyun places a reassuring hand on Kyungsoo’s shoulder.

A mop of brown hair sticking up in all directions suddenly appears at the doorway and the man trips over his own shoelaces in a hurry to run to the desk.

“I totally forgot the list comes out today,” he breathes, picking himself up and stumbling across the room to switch on his computer.

“It’s fine, Sehun,” Baekhyun says. “Jongin placed number one.”

Sehun blinks. “Oh really? Great, I’ll tell him that.” When he has dialled the number on his phone, he asks, “What about you, Kyungsoo?”

“Second,” Kyungsoo gripes. He doesn’t even try to mask the irritation in his voice. If it were anyone else, Kyungsoo would’ve snapped at them for trying to egg him on, but Sehun is positively lost one hundred percent of the time and Kyungsoo is sure he only asked the question out of pure curiosity without any other ill intentions.

“Kyungsoo,” Sehun calls as he peels his face away from the phone. “Jongin told me to pass on his congratulations.”

“Tell him to fuck off,” snaps Kyungsoo. This is how they have grown to know one another, through electronic pages where their names are either above or below each other. Their relationship is built upon a thick foundation of contempt.

Jongin’s voice comes blaring through the metal brick, “I heard that!”

It’s obvious Jongin is not offended at all. He is thoroughly amused by the situation.

And apparently Sehun isn’t as dumb as his long fringed bowl cut and happy-go-lucky smile might suggest. When he notices the way Kyungsoo narrows his eyes and his forehead begins to crease, Sehun bids them goodbye and quickly leaves the room, still on the phone with Jongin.

Somewhere from down the hallway, he hisses, “You shouldn’t egg him on! You’ve never met him so you don’t know how scary he is when he gets mad. Don’t underestimate small people, small people can be really intimidating.”

“Sehun, we can hear you,” Baekhyun clears his throat and shouts.

“I’m sorry, you didn’t hear anything. Kyungsoo, you’re not scary at all.” squeaks Sehun back. Kyungsoo can imagine Sehun jumping from the sound of Baekhyun’s voice and the phone slipping out of his grasp in his alarm.

It takes a while for Sehun’s echoing voice to disappear from the hallway completely. When they can no longer hear him talking to Jongin, Kyungsoo laments, “Why do I even write if no one even appreciates it.”

“What do you mean no one appreciates your work? Look, you’re number two.” Baekhyun points to the screen. The gesture has the complete opposite effect to the editor’s intended desire as Kyungsoo grimaces at the sight. “There are a lot of people who would cry if they were in the bestsellers list, let alone second.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Kyungsoo sighs. It’s impossible for anyone, no matter how successful or popular they are, no matter how much of a loyal following their novels have gather, to guarantee topping the bestsellers list. The final result comes down to a million little circumstances that no one has control over. Placing first is a game of luck and strategy. You only need the tiniest sliver of talent.

“Kyungsoo, you don’t write to place first,” Baekhyun says. “You write because you enjoy it.”

Of course that’s why people write. Writing is a form of enjoyment and a platform of expression.

The sad truth is though, eventually, every person who writes looks down at their keys and the words on their pages and forgets the reason they began to write. For some people, it just takes a little while longer.

At seven published books, Kyungsoo spends everyday pushing the fatigue away and convinces himself that he is one of the few people in the world doing something he genuinely enjoys. He’s not ready to let go of it yet. So he nods at Baekhyun, “Yeah, thanks for that. I needed it.”

“Now that you’ve been grounded, let’s focus on the more important things.”

They proceed to prepare a plan to snatch the throne back from Jongin’s grasp into Kyungsoo’s hands where it rightfully belongs.

 

 

 

☂ ☂ ☂

 

 

 

After four years of competing on the bestsellers lists and throwing each other the occasional snide remark when they find themselves within greeting radius at the office, Jongin and Kyungsoo meet properly for the first time at the Seoul International Writer’s Festival.

Kyungsoo wakes up on the wrong side of the bed, nursing a bad case of nausea. He thinks that these, in addition to the grey clouds in the sky, are telltale signs of a disastrous day. But Baekhyun cares nothing for Kyungsoo’s superstition and ignores his complaints, dragging him out of bed by his ear. Breakfast is forced down his throat and then he is shoved into the back of a taxi and they are on their way towards the venue.

He spends the entire trip eyeing the clouds in the sky precariously and trying to calm his churning stomach.

“Oh my god,” Kyungsoo gasps. “I think I just saw a hearse drive past us.”

Baekhyun doesn’t even look up when he replies evenly, “You’re just imagining things. Calm down and stop wobbling your legs.”

It feels like weeks have passed before they finally pull into the carpark and Kyungsoo is ushered through the back door of the venue towards the panel that has already been set up with a white cloth covered table. The panel seats eight authors and he is allocated the middle.

Kyungsoo almost faints when he sees Jongin’s name printed on the place card beside his.

“I knew coming was a terrible idea,” he wails.

“What the fuck,” comes a deep voice from behind Kyungsoo.

 _Be polite_ , Kyungsoo chants in his head when he turns around to face the owner of the voice. As usual, the man is dressed in a camel trench coat and dark wash jeans.

“Ah, Kim Jongin–,” Kyungsoo starts to extend his hand.

“Sehun, am I reading this right?” Jongin completely ignores Kyungsoo and instead turns around to his editor. “Did I put my contacts in the wrong way round this morning?”

“No, you’re reading it right,” Kyungsoo answers on behalf of Sehun. “We’re seated next each other. How exciting.”

Jongin makes a show of peering over and around Kyungsoo, even going as far as doing a 360 degree turn to survey the whole room before he looks down at him. His lips pull into a smirk, “Oh, I didn’t see you down there.”

Kyungsoo must have forgotten what a complete utter asshole Kim Jongin is. That was a terrible mistake.

“That was a low blow–”

“Even lower than your rank on the bestsellers list?” Jongin grin grows wider.

Sometimes, Kyungsoo wished that he had been a jock in high school instead of a nerd and bookworm. If he’d been one of those guys who were obsessed with going to the gym and spent hours flexing his muscles in the mirror and comparing them to that of his friends in the change rooms, maybe he would have enough strength to break Jongin’s face. The harsh reality, however, is that it would probably be Kyungsoo’s fingers smashed to pieces if they connected with Jongin’s chiselled cheekbones and nose bridge. And he really ought to save his fingers because they earn him money and keep him alive.

He takes three deep breaths, until his fingers are gradually unclenching.

Then he, like the civil person he is inside, shoots back, “Do you think you’re fucking funny?”

“I’m hilarious,” Jongin responds without missing a beat.

Kyungsoo swears he is going to wipe that smirk right off Jongin’s face when a couple of workers stumble onto the scene. As if the tension wasn’t already rigid enough to tell, they ask blankly, “Is there a problem here?”

Baekhyun rolls his eyes and sighs, leading them into the corner to explain the situation.

The event organisers apologise profusely to the editors with wide eyes, saying something along the lines of, “We seated people from the same publisher together, it was an honest mistake,” but Kyungsoo thinks that is absolute bullshit. The two authors have attended the same events together and managed to be kept far, far away from the other.

Baekhyun shares his sentiments.

“They just want beef from the famous rivalry,” he hisses. He looks Kyungsoo dead in the eyes and asks, “Do you know what this means?”

“We give them nothing?”

“That’s right,” nods Baekhyun.

“I’ll try my best.” Kyungsoo glances over at Jongin who gives him a wave, permanent smirk present, and scowls in return. “No promises though.”

Baekhyun’s impending shriek is cut off by the announcer introducing the panel of authors.

Kyungsoo is fourth.

“Do Kyungsoo, author of the bestselling _Ambivalent_ series and _Faint of Heart_.”

Kyungsoo plasters on a wide smile and waves to the screaming crowd as he steps out. He squints to see where the congregation of people dwindle and scatter into other excited festival goers. The sight of the crowd stretching right to the back where he can’t see makes his head spin and he has already begun to flex his fingers and prepare for a long day.

“Kim Jongin, author of the critically acclaimed novels, _Beneath the Blue_ and _White_.”

“What’s with you and naming your books after colours,” Kyungsoo snorts when Jongin slides into the seat beside him.

“It’s an artistic thing,” Jongin replies simply as he takes a swig of water from the bottle provided at the front of the table, “I wouldn’t expect you to understand.”

Kyungsoo rolls his eyes and imitates, “Cause I’m Kim Jongin and I’m so artistic and brilliant.”

“Sounds about right.” Jongin flashes a grin at him.

The familiar feeling of anger bubbling beneath Kyungsoo skin, burning through his veins, comes back. His voice is dangerously low, “I swear–”

“Sh, we’re starting.” Jongin nudges him, keeping his gaze planted forward.

 

 

 

☂ ☂ ☂

 

 

 

For the most part, the event passes smoothly.

Kyungsoo finds himself falling into easy conversation with another Young Adult novelist to his left, whose books Kyungsoo has read and thoroughly enjoyed. When they released a novel at the same time last year, the particular author had placed second below Kyungsoo on the bestsellers list.

As the panel progresses and the host proposes question after question to the authors, it becomes increasingly evident that he is trying to provoke Kyungsoo and Jongin. Despite the constant encouragement, both of them keep their remarks to tight-lipped jeers. After a while, Jongin begins to tap his fingers on the table and click his tongue.

The host continues, “This panel is filled with a variety of different authors, a mix of Young Adult, highbrow, and also erotica writers. I guess the question is: do you read each other’s books?”

“Yes,” the author sitting to farthest left of the panel answers. She leans forward into her microphone, tucking her hair behind her ear and fiddling with her hands. “I have personally read all the novels of every Young Adult novelist here, and some of my fans have probably seen my comments about them. I’ve also read a couple of Jongin’s novels and I have a large amount of respect for him and his talent.”

“Thank you,” Jongin responds. “I am regretful to admit that I, unfortunately, haven’t been able to read any of your works. Writing, as I’m sure every person on this panel understands, is quite time-consuming and I barely have any free time.”

“Bullshit,” mutters Kyungsoo under his breath. Then he raises his voice and quips, “He’s only saying that to cover up the fact that he looks down on us Young Adult authors.”

Jongin breaks into a smile, one that shows off his rows of straight white teeth and shining eyes. This is why, Kyungsoo thinks, the rest of the country is head over heels in love with the highbrow author. Jongin’s voice is coloured with amusement when he retorts, “That privilege is only reserved for you, Kyungsoo. I have great respect for every other Young Adult novelist.”

When Kyungsoo sucks a shallow breath in, the audience begins to collectively coo, “Ooh.” This is the banter that they have waited hours to see, lined up outside the venue since dawn cracked and the first slivers of sunlight started to peek through the clouds.

Somewhere in the back of his head, he hears Baekhyun’s sharp voice and remembers his editor’s words. Kyungsoo exhales, nods, and forces with a chuckle, “Well, aren’t I lucky?”

He ignores the way the audience sighs heavily in disappointment. The host continues asking questions, directed at each of the different authors, with a dampened mood.

When the author seating on the far right of the panel is talking about her struggles with trying to please her audience, Jongin whispers, “I’m surprised you didn’t take the bait.”

Kyungsoo only barely catches it above the amplified voice of the talking author but he shoots back, “Some of us are older than ten.”

“I can see that some of us are also groundlessly presumptuous today,” remarks Jongin. It takes everything in Kyungsoo not to kick him underneath the table. Then Jongin asks, “Don’t you think the host is being a little too overt?”

It would be easier for Kyungsoo to keep his word to Baekhyun if the highbrow author would stop talking to him every two seconds. His patience is running thin, taking longer than usual for his veins to slot back into place and for him to become calm again. However, he still replies, “It’s not like this situation will happen again, so I’m sure he is making most of the opportunity.”

“Who knows whether this situation will be repeated? It’s been quite enjoyable sitting next to you. You’re easier to aggravate in person.”

“I made a promise to my editor,” breathes Kyungsoo.

“That makes two of us,” says Jongin. “I have made a lot of promises in my lifetime, but I can singlehandedly count the amount I have actually fulfilled.”

“I’m not interested in your life story.” Kyungsoo doesn’t think Jongin is very adept at reading the atmosphere, or noticing Kyungsoo’s attempts at terminating the conversation.

Jongin continues, “I can guarantee you it’s more interesting than the garbage you publish.”

“That’s rich coming from you,” scoffs Kyungsoo. “I think the only one who writes garbage here is yourself.”

“Cute,” Jongin derides. “You think your opinion is valid.”

Thankfully, the host interrupts Kyungsoo. A second too late and he’s not sure the scandalous articles the tabloids publish tomorrow would be entirely false.

“During the process of writing the _Ambivalent_ series, did you experience any difficulties?” is the question he is asked.

“I think that when you’re writing anything, whether it be a novel, a short story, poetry, anything, that you grapple with your own difficulties. For me, the will to continue is particularly taxing, and I do have a hard time tying stories up and finishing them,” answers Kyungsoo. “I think out of all my works so far, the Ambivalent books were probably the easiest to write because they were my first ones. When I was writing them I solely focused on them. Now I have about a dozen projects I’m working on all at the same time.”

Jongin decides he can’t forego the opportunity to toss in a taunt at Kyungsoo and adds, “I guess as you keep writing and increase your workload, the quality of your books decrease.”

“I’m sure you would know from reading my books,” Kyungsoo retorts.

Before the audience and the host can react to the statement and ponder over the implications, Jongin swoops in and continues, “I guess that’s the beauty of writing trilogies and series and what not, you end up gathering a following of mindless fans who devour anything you release without giving a second thought about the writing itself.”

Kyungsoo frowns at the words. They’re not just directed towards him, but also offends all the other Young Adult authors seated on the panel and the crowd that fills the entirety of the room.

The host coughs and announces that the book signing will begin promptly and instructs everyone to file into an organised line starting at the bottom of the steps. The room is filled with a buzz of excitement as everyone rushes to save their place in the queue and the authors grab their permanent markers. Everyone, it seems, forgets about Jongin’s statement. Only Kyungsoo remains frozen in his seat, Jongin’s words running through his head repeatedly. A heavy feeling begins to weigh down his heart and he wonders if he really is too overconfident and his skills aren’t nearly as prodigious as he has fooled himself into believing.

But he doesn’t have time to mull over his insecurities. Jongin nudges him and raises an eyebrow, asking, “Aren’t you going to grab your pen? The fans are coming up already.”

“I was doing that,” Kyungsoo snaps. He uncaps his Sharpie and greets the girl standing tentatively in front of him, carrying the latest novel from his prequel trilogy. He flashes his usual smile and asks for her name, addressing the signature neatly on the title page. Then he passes it back to her and says, “Thank you for always reading my books and supporting me.”

The girl blushes and shakes her head hurriedly, “I really enjoy reading them! I hope you never stop writing.” She then rushes off past Jongin and the rest of the authors.

Twenty-six signed books later, Kyungsoo notices that most of the crowd were made up of Young Adult fans, excitedly greeting the first four authors on the panel and disappearing after having their book signed by Kyungsoo. It’s an understatement to say he is surprised when a black-haired girl dressed in a red plaid shirt and distressed denim shorts comes up clutching both his novel and another book with a cover that looks suspiciously similar to _White_.

“You two are both my favourite authors,” she exclaims as she slides Kyungsoo’s book over to him.

“Do forgive me, but did you mean to say I am your favourite author?” Jongin clarifies while Kyungsoo accepts her book. When the girl shakes her head slowly and repeats that she is a fan of both his and Kyungsoo’s books, Jongin swears, “I have never been more offended in my life.”

The girl creases her forehead and starts to fiddle with her hands, apologising, “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to offend you. I just really, really like the books the two of you release.”

Kyungsoo finishes signing her book and hands it back to her with an encouraging smile. “Don’t mind him. He doesn’t care about anyone but himself. You’re better off not wasting your time with him.”

She pouts and hesitates before passing her copy of _White_ to Jongin. He takes it roughly and glares at Kyungsoo, “Funny that you would say that. Anyone who reads your novels is wasting their time.”

“Hey,” Kyungsoo says. His rising voice makes the authors pause and turn to look at him. “At least my books are real books.” He can feel Baekhyun wincing from behind the stage but it’s already too late to stop the oncoming fight. Adrenaline is pulsing through Kyungsoo’s veins. He’s not sure what has made the pent up irritation and anger explode. It’s not like Jongin’s last comment was the worst he’d ever had to bear.

Jongin blinks at him, and places his pen down slowly.

“Are you seriously accusing my works of not being real books?” His voice is strangely passive.

Kyungsoo shrugs and says, “Considering that they are just piles of incoherent thoughts dumped onto pages between two thick covers, you have a lot of nerve to call them novels.” Blood is rushing up and pooling in his cheeks. He is aware that everyone’s eyes are trained on him, but he can’t find the inclination to back down.

“May I just remind you who placed first on the bestsellers list last time? I’m sure if your sentiments were true, I wouldn’t even dream of seeing my name there,” sneers Jongin.

“We both know you use your looks to sell your sorry excuse of books.”

“We also both know that your novels only sell because you milk innocent girls’ naïve fantasies with your unrealistic and cliché characters and romance tropes.”

Jongin is wrong. Or maybe he isn’t.

“Alright, time out,” Sehun declares, placing a firm hand on Jongin’s shoulder from behind.

Kyungsoo turns around and finds Baekhyun looking at him. The editors had caught wind of the argument and rushed onto the stage as a last resort. Baekhyun sighs, “At least you didn’t stand up or get physical. The photographers would have had a real ball then.” He gestures to the six people who have gathered at the entrance of the room heaving hefty digital cameras pointed towards the panel.

Beside Kyungsoo, Sehun is whispering something in Jongin’s ear that makes the highbrow author widen his eyes. It piques Kyungsoo’s curiosity, although he doesn’t voice it. All he wants to do is finish the signing and disaster of a panel appearance so he can crawl into his bed, wrap himself in his blankets and sleep away the nightmare that has been meeting Jongin.

Baekhyun leans into the microphone and apologises, “Sorry for how this panel has turned out. Please forgive the unprofessionalism we have displayed and continue supporting our authors’ works.”

To Kyungsoo’s dismay, the editors leave hastily and the signing continues. He can tell by the way every person who stops in front of him to have their book signed shifts back and forth and lingers behind, that they want to mention something about the argument that had erupted beforehand. Kyungsoo is glad that they are too apprehensive to bring it up and returns their signed novels with a stiff smile.

When the winding line of adoring fans finally ends, Kyungsoo is able to breathe a sigh of relief and shake out his swollen fingers. As he is escorted to the taxi waiting outside the venue and takes one last look at the retreating figure down the street dressed in a trench coat, he hopes that he will never have the misfortune of seeing that ass Kim Jongin’s face ever again.

He is very wrong.

 


	2. part ii

 

 

 

_(3 years later)_

 

Phones are the saviours of the 21st century, and also the worst invention of mankind.

For the past four days, the stupid block of metal has been going off non-stop. The default iPhone marimba tune for calls, a high-pitched ding for texts and a swoosh for incoming emails. A couple of times Kyungsoo has made the mistake of peeking at the lock screen which holds a million notifications and caught glimpses of the senders. They’re mostly from Baekhyun, followed of a couple of emails from directors – probably brimming with passive aggression, and some from his author friends.

He feels bad for not telling Baekhyun before he posted the announcement. It’s probably the first time he’s made a decision on his own without consulting his editor and he’s not sure if it’s the right choice or if it’s wrong. What he does know, however, is that he feels ten times lighter than he has ever felt in the past few years.

Kyungsoo hadn’t planned for it to be this way. For the situation to be akin to someone breaking up over text.

It had been weighing on him for over a year now. The decision to quit writing. He first felt it in his swollen fingers and bloodshot eyes, an overwhelming fatigue that would never leave him. Kyungsoo could sleep for hours, and he would still wake up not wanting to face the world and the documents that awaited diligently on his computer.

Last week, when the whirlwind of press tours and book signings had finally finished and Kyungsoo found himself sitting back in his chair in front of his desk, everything caught up to him. His hands moved before he could think and the letter was out and posted on his blog before he could delete it and pretend that the damage hadn’t already been done. It blew up across every news outlet, and the rest is history.

Kyungsoo hasn’t been out of his apartment in five days, living off instant ramen and whatever packaged junk food he can dig out of his pantries. He mildly notes that some of the cans had been printed with expiry dates that stretched back too far to be excusable. Although he can basically feel the oil and fat building up beneath his skin, he is too nervous to step outside his house. Baekhyun has been knocking incessantly on his door as a result of his ignored text messages and calls. Kyungsoo wouldn’t be surprised to find him camping outside the door, waiting to ambush the author the moment he walks out.

And then it starts again. Erratic raps on the door echo through his apartment.

“Go away Baek,” he shouts from where he is laying on his bed.

“I’m not your editor!” is the reply that comes bouncing back.

Kyungsoo freezes. He pinches himself three times to make sure that he’s actually awake.

He could never forget that voice no matter how hard he tried, it followed him wherever he went. It played out in his head whenever he was stuck on a scene in one of his books, it slipped into his dreams (or should he call them nightmares), it appeared in interviews roasting Kyungsoo. Now, it’s coming from outside his apartment.

“Jongin?”

Still caught in shock, his feet move by themselves, and he is unlocking the door before he can even register what is happening. Surely enough, Jongin stumbles in wearing grey sweatpants, a matching hoodie and round glasses perched on his nose.

“Why did you quit?” Jongin grabs Kyungsoo by both shoulders. “And before the release of the final book in the trilogy too?”

Silence that fills the room and there are a million questions racing through Kyungsoo’s mind, and there are a million that he could ask, but the one he chooses out of all of them is, “You read my books?”

Jongin shakes his head. “Don’t be too flattered. I wouldn’t exactly say I read your books because I would never lower myself to the standard of reading tactless Young Adult novels that target the insecurities of the young female population. But I, mayhaps, have been bored in between signings and meetings and all the usual burdens of being such a renowned author like myself–”

“So your point is?” Kyungsoo yawns. It’s nine in the morning and too early to be trying to contemplate Jongin’s words. They flow through one ear and straight out the other.

“The point is…I hate the thought of an unfinished story.”

“Okay,” Kyungsoo nods understandingly. “But no.”

“Look here,” Jongin huffs. “You have Kim Jongin, winner of a Yi Sang award, author of numerous bestselling books that I can list for you right here, right now, standing in your dingy apartment; asking you to write a book and you are refusing?”

“I’m not really sure you listing off all your achievements and offending my apartment – which can I just say, is very nice – is going to get you that book you want?” Kyungsoo isn’t sure Jongin has any common sense, but then again, what else did he expect from Jongin?

“I swear.” Jongin’s finger is pointed dangerously close to Kyungsoo’s eye. “If you don’t write it, I will.”

The thought of Jongin hunched over a laptop squeezing out sappy words intended to melt young girls’ hearts amuses Kyungsoo thoroughly and he almost indulges in the offer. But as much as he tries to convince himself otherwise, the characters that he has spent notebooks creating profiles for and plots he has lost countless hours of sleep trying to outline are things he holds very closely to his heart, and he can’t let them be tainted by the pretentious fingers of Jongin.

Someone else bursts into his apartment with a triumphant shout.

“Fuck,” Kyungsoo mutters at the sight of the bubblegum pink hair. “I forgot to lock the door.”

A brown paper bag dangling precariously from his fingers, Baekhyun turns to grin at Kyungsoo but stops at the sight of Jongin.

“Kim Jongin?” he quirks a brow up.

“He’s a fan, apparently,” Kyungsoo explains.

Jongin is quick to defend himself, “I will not be belittled to the title of a fan. Let us just say I have found amusement in Kyungsoo’s books once or twice.”

“Trust me, I’m pretty sure he loves my books.” Kyungsoo leans in to whisper into Baekhyun’s ear.

Baekhyun glances back and forth between the two authors. It’s clear that he has much more to say about the situation than what he voices, but he just shrugs and remarks, “Well, I think Sehun is looking for you.”

“I gathered; my phone has been vibrating all morning.” Jongin nods before he turns to Kyungsoo again. “Please reconsider your decision.” Then he leaves in a hurry. It’s a strange sight, Jongin out of his usual trench coat and haughty demeanour, although he still kept that snark that was undoubtedly his.

Baekhyun saunters over to the dining table and sets the bag down.

“I brought over food because I bet a hundred bucks that you’ve only been eating instant ramen and god knows what other gross food that is clogging up your arteries.” He stamps open the bin and grimaces at the sight of various coloured ramen and chip packets. He sniffs, “I don’t understand how your skin still looks nice.”

It’s an understatement to say that Kyungsoo’s heart cracks a little when he watches Baekhyun pull two containers of garden salad out of the paper bag. He tries to calculate the distance to the door and wonders if he could make it out the door in time and escape being subjected to the horrifyingly healthy food currently being laid out on the table.

“I know that look, don’t even think about running away,” Baekhyun says sternly. “As your editor, and dear friend, I am obligated to keep your heart happy.”

“My heart would be happier if I just ate comfort food all day,” mutters Kyungsoo as he drags a chair out slowly and slumps onto it, elbows resting against the timber top table.

“I hate to have to put this pressure on you because I know you have probably already been stressing yourself out enough these past few days, but, why didn’t you tell me?” Baekhyun asks. “It shocked us all, you know. People ran up to me and demanded to know what was going on, and all I could do is cop their shit because I didn’t know anything.”

“I’m sorry.” Kyungsoo’s voice is quiet when he apologises.

Baekhyun pats Kyungsoo’s back and shoots a smile at him, “Don’t be so solemn. I’ve had my fair share of angsty authors, it doesn’t really matter.”

While he encourages Kyungsoo to eat, glaring at him until he slowly shoves every piece of romaine lettuce and slice of cucumber into his mouth, Baekhyun fills Kyungsoo in on everything that has been happening in the office while he has been away. Several new authors and novels were acquired, a few salespeople fired.

Kyungsoo doesn’t remember the last time he’d had a conversation like this. Words flowing casually about topics that aren’t always wired on his next project or the deadline that had already passed the day before.

Baekhyun is enamoured on telling a story of how a new really attractive editor had been hired. His hands are flying in the hair and his eyes are crinkling up that Kyungsoo thinks the topic of the third book has been dropped when Baekhyun says, “You should really write the final book, even if it’s the last one you ever do.”

He sighs when he sees Kyungsoo freeze and lower his cutlery. Kyungsoo doesn’t even need to speak before Baekhyun raises his arms in resignation. He says, “It was worth a try!”

“You know me Baekhyun,” Kyungsoo says. “I wouldn’t have posted the letter if I wasn’t absolutely fixed on my decision.”

“I know,” moans Baekhyun. “But I just thought that maybe Kim Jongin showing up might have made you waver a little. Aren’t you flattered that he reads your books?”

“No!”

“Well, I am,” shrugs Baekhyun.

In his mind, Kyungsoo labels him a traitor.

 

 

 

☂ ☂ ☂

 

 

 

Life as a free man, Kyungsoo finds, is surprisingly boring.

All of a sudden, his sleeping patterns are _normal_. Every night, he watches runs of television shows that he has recorded from years back and never had the time to see. Then, without a fail, at ten o’clock, he will shuffle into his bathroom and brush his teeth and wash his face. There are no phone calls or shrill voices waking him up in the morning because he has a deadline to meet and drafts to attend to that were due five days ago.

A week and a half after the fiasco in his apartment where Jongin admitted to being a fan, Kyungsoo decides that he has had enough of the take-away and couch potato life and leaves the navy blue walls of his apartment and trudges down the street. It feels like he’s only just now discovering his neighbourhood despite moving into his apartment over fours years ago. Between being cooped up in his home juggling manuscripts and attending tightly scheduled book tours, Kyungsoo realises that he has never really seen beyond the front door of his apartment complex.

When he turns the corner, he sniffs a familiar smell.

It reminds him of late nights and early mornings and deadlines. Normally, Kyungsoo scrunches his nose away at the smell of coffee because he hates the instant coffee he owns at home and the way it burns his throat. He used to depend on it like a drug because, well, work was work and deadlines were deadlines.

However, this coffee smell drifting from the café halfway down the block is pleasantly different to the instant ones he drinks at home. It pulls him through two glass doors and into a quaint atmosphere. The café is littered with several armchairs of different colours. Along the side, there is a pale champagne-coloured couch that stretches all across the brick wall, arranged with assortments of patchwork cushions. Exposed light bulbs hang down from the ceiling all around the café, giving it a dim lighting and the warm feeling of home.

Kyungsoo is at the counter having just finished paying for his order when someone swings an arm around his shoulder.

“Look, who it is,” Kyungsoo looks up to see Jongin’s giddy face grinning at him. “My favourite trashy author.”

“Are you stalking me?” tumbles out of Kyungsoo’s mouth before he is able to stop himself from sounding like a cliché character from one of his books.

“Don’t flatter yourself, I would never stalk you,” Jongin says as he detaches his arm from Kyungsoo’s shoulder. He scrunches his nose in distaste.

“But you would read my books,” Kyungsoo deadpans.

Jongin stamps on Kyungsoo’s foot. Kyungsoo sticks his tongue out at Jongin who is, once again, dressed in a trench coat. What a surprise.

“I always come back to this café to write,” explains Jongin. His hands are shoved into the pockets of his coat and he rocks back and forth, looking straight ahead and avoiding Kyungsoo’s accusing gaze.

He looks like he wants to say more but the barista is calling out, “One latte with two sugars.”

Kyungsoo is halfway through reaching for the takeaway coffee cup when another hand grabs it instead. Jongin, coffee in hand, blinks at him.

“This is my order?” Jongin cocks his head to the side. For once, the highbrow author sounds genuinely confused, rather than snarky.

“No, it’s mine,” Kyungsoo protests.

The two of them turn to the barista and stare at him expectantly. Bewildered from the intensity, the barista tilts his head down to squint at the name written on the order and enunciates, “Jongin.”

“I told you so,” Jongin taunts, looking incredibly smug. There is a dangerous glint in his eyes that Kyungsoo knows all too well.

“This one’s yours,” the barista hands a coffee cup to Kyungsoo and confirms, “Latte, two sugars,” as if he hasn’t just witnessed the two customers in front of him fighting for the previous identical order.

“Um, thanks,” Kyungsoo accepts it gratefully and keeps his eyes down, ready to hightail out of the café when Jongin holds him back by the elbow.

“You owe me for trying to steal my coffee,” he says, taking a sip just to rub it in Kyungsoo’s face that it was indeed his own latte. “Now sit down and have coffee with me.”

Jongin drags Kyungsoo to a table in the corner and plops down on the couch while Kyungsoo sits on the chair opposite him. Jongin is pulling his laptop out of his shoulder bag when he adds proudly, “This table is reserved for me.”

If you explained the current situation in the café to Kyungsoo three years ago – hell even just two weeks ago – he would have laughed in your face for a whole five minutes. And then proceed to direct you to the nearest psychiatrist because you definitely had mental issues if you thought that Kyungsoo could even breathe steadily and calmly next to Kim Jongin. Sitting opposite him and watching the man knit his eyebrows in concentration as his fingers tap away on the keyboard, Kyungsoo realises he has violated all the things on his “If you ever see that asshole Kim Jongin” to-do-list.

Having coffee and watching Jongin type out another surely awful highbrow novel is definitely not on it.

“What’s the point of me being here if you are just going to work?” Kyungsoo makes sure his voice his loaded with disgust when he mentions ‘work.’

Jongin replies without looking up from his laptop, “Are you sad that I’m neglecting you?”

“Get over yourself,” scoffs Kyungsoo.

He takes another sip and surveys the café. People stream in and out, leaving with cups of coffees in their hands. Some stay and settle in the armchairs and share plates of waffles and ice-cream with crinkled eyes as they laugh over their conversation. Others, like Jongin, are on their laptop with creased eyebrows, their food on the table untouched and forgotten. Kyungsoo thinks that it’s not a bad place to write.

Jongin seems to read Kyungsoo’s thoughts.

“You should try writing here,” he suggests.

Kyungsoo rolls his eyes at Jongin’s not so subtle ploy of satisfying his needs of a final book and reminds him, “I quit the author life, remember?”

“I just recall you shattered the hearts of half the teenage girl population when you decided to be an asshole and not finish your series,” Jongin fires back at him.

It’s banter. Kyungsoo knows it is. But it doesn’t stop him from being eaten away by guilt and regret. He thinks that after churning out successful books one after another to make people happy, making a selfish decision would be easy. It would be right.

Once again, Jongin takes note of Kyungsoo’s lack of a snarky comeback and frowns a little, “You alright? If I crossed the line, I’m sorry.”

“Oh, so the almighty Kim Jongin _apologises_?”

“Hey,” Jongin retaliates, “Of course I apologise, who do you think I am?”

“...”

“Fuck you.”

Three hours later, after Kyungsoo has read all the available newspapers offered at the front of the café, Jongin finally peels his eyes away from his laptop screen and stretches his arms and fingers out.

“So,” he starts. “I know we’re not exactly on the best terms–”

“Affirmative.”

Jongin glares at him before continuing, “But do you mind me asking why you chose to stop writing?” It was visible that the last part of the question physically pained him to say.

Kyungsoo doesn’t like Jongin. When he sees the man’s face, of prominent cheekbones and a shadowed jaw line, his blood boils. He has spent hours on end, venting to Baekhyun and whoever else would listen about why Jongin doesn’t deserve all the praise people are showering him with. He isn’t quite sure what makes him feel so comfortable in that moment then and there that it prompts him to open his mouth and talk about things he has only ever briefly hinted at Baekhyun.

“It was a selfish decision. Writing used to be fun, a hobby or a passion you might call it, and it was ridiculously exciting when people like to read my books. Or when I made the bestsellers lists. But then, people started expecting things, _I_ started expecting things from myself. When my book wasn’t as magical as the previous one, my inbox would overflow with hate mail, horrible headlines would slam themselves over news articles.

“Writing wasn’t fun anymore, no longer a hobby or a passion. But a job. And I began to hate it, hate the way that the words on the page would rob me of sleep at night and give me anxiety, wondering if people were going to read them and love them, or if I would wake up to another influx of letters telling me everything that I’ve done wrong. Whether I would place number one or whether I would grace the spot below it. Sleeping patterns didn’t exist, neither did a healthy diet. I dreaded writing, because the act of it became a mental battle with myself. Somewhere between my first book that I set out to promote myself and the ones that were being advertised two years before the cover was even released, I was no longer proud of anything that I wrote.

“I actually drafted book three hundreds of times but I never liked it so in the end so I decided to drop it.”

Jongin says nothing, just looks at Kyungsoo for a very long time. Then he goes back to working.

Kyungsoo isn’t sure what kind of reaction he was expecting out of Jongin, if he was expecting anything at all, but apart of him is a little deflated that the highbrow author had said nothing, expressed nothing and simply gone back to writing out whatever piece of junk the world will fall blindly in love with next.

“Take a break sometimes.” Jongin’s voice is quiet when it pulls Kyungsoo out of his thoughts. “I’m never getting books out on time. I ignore the deadlines, sometimes I’ll spontaneously buy a ticket to Belize or another exotic country and relax for a while. It drives Sehun crazy, but hey, I line his pockets with money.”

He should probably say thank you or something akin to that, but Kyungsoo automatically blurts defensively, “That’s because you don’t write book series.”

Jongin shrugs, “Authors release sequels and prequels sporadically all the time. No one is forcing you to be a considerate author. Other than the director and all those other poised old men in clean pressed drab-coloured suits, but they’re irrelevant.”

Kyungsoo thinks about Jongin’s reasoning, and although he agrees, he still shakes his head. He offers, “I can tell you plot points and how it ends.” Although he’d changed scenes around and cut out others, significant plot points stayed the same and the ending had been set in stone since the start of the trilogy.

“No.” Jongin looks thoroughly offended by Kyungsoo’s proposal. “I want a book. With lots of pages and big type Garamond inked on them.”

“This is the best you’re going to get.”

Jongin ignores him and stands up. When he has finished packing up his laptop and notebooks, he says, “I’m not saying that it has to be next week, next month, or even next year when you release the final book. I just want one someday. So don’t quit being an author, alright?”

Jongin ruffles Kyungsoo’s hair and walks out.

 

 

 

☂ ☂ ☂

 

 

 

Kyungsoo tells himself that the reason why he is sitting on a wooden park bench with his notebook in hand two days later is definitely not because of Jongin.

He tells himself that he wanted to change in scenery. And air. Because fresh air is very important.

For his entire career, he has never written outside. His bestsellers all came to be in the humble four walls of his home, a hotel somewhere in Tokyo or in the back of a taxi cab. They were never free of a deadline, and none of the ideas had ever been thought up of as he was leaning back against wood and watching a couple of high school boys kick a soccer ball around.

His notebook is blank save for the date. Kyungsoo has been sitting down for an hour and he’s had no ideas whatsoever. Even when two old ladies, one mother with a pram, and a boy waiting for his date have come and gone, borrowing the other side of the bench. He usually likes watching people, noting their features and their movements and reflecting them in his characters. More often than not, he will pluck out strangers on the street that pique his curiosity and borrow their eye colour, or the way they walk like they’re leaving something important behind. Maybe it was the way his mind was always tuned to look at people like they were inspiration; now he’s shut off that part of his brain, he sees them as what they are, just random passersby.

A soccer ball knocks him out of his thoughts. Literally. It slams right into Kyungsoo’s chest and he curses loudly, losing his grip on his notebook. The ball bounces onto the ground and rolls away.

“I’m so sorry.” One of the high school boys have come to retrieve the ball and apologises profusely. He also bends down to pick up Kyungsoo’s notebook lying on the ground and hands it to him.

“It’s fine,” Kyungsoo smiles weakly, ribs still pulsing painfully, and nods in gratitude when he takes the notebook.

He expects the boy to run back to his friends and kick that godforsaken object across the field again, but he sticks around instead. “Writer?”

“What?” Kyungsoo blinks. “Oh, yeah. How did you know?”

The boy smiles, “You just have that sort of aura, you know?” He laughs at his own incoherency. “I can just tell.”

Kyungsoo eyes the boy up and down and observes his hair coloured somewhere between coral and dusty rose. His mind subconsciously stores this characteristic for future reference, even if he has firmly told himself over and over that he doesn’t need reference materials anymore. “I don’t really write anymore,” says Kyungsoo.

“Oh,” the boy frowns. “Why did you stop? If you don’t mind me asking.”

Kyungsoo repeats the same monologue he gave to Jongin at the cafè.

The boy nods thoughtfully and says, “I get where you’re coming from, if that’s not being too presumptuous.” He juggles the soccer ball back and forth between his hands. “I don’t think people understand how hard it is to be a writer. They subconsciously put all this pressure on authors to crank out well-written novels under short timeframes, and when they come out they’re not satisfied and keep demanding more. Books are basically authors’ babies and people don’t really see that.”

“Are you a writer yourself?” asks Kyungsoo.

“No, I’m not, just an avid reader.” The boy shakes his head. “I really admire authors and the way they have an entire world and adventure in their head, the way they can translate that into words on a page and create a portal for people like me to take a break from their mundane lives.” His friends are jumping up and sending him all kinds of gestures, asking him what he is doing and why he isn’t returning. “Ah sorry, I think my friends want me back.”

“That’s alright,” Kyungsoo replies. “Sorry for keeping you.”

Before he leaves, the boy grins toothily at Kyungsoo, “I hope you don’t give up being an author. There aren’t many people in the world who can do the same kind of amazing things as you.”

“I didn’t catch your name,” says Kyungsoo, and it comes out before he realises the implications of his words. He hopes that the boy doesn’t take it as flirting.

“It’s Kim Minseok.”

He runs off before Kyungsoo can tell him his own.

 

 

 

☂ ☂ ☂

 

 

 

The next day, Kyungsoo takes a quick stroll to pay a visit to his local library.

He had decided that the peace and quiet of the library would spur some progression in his planning. When he finds a desk area tucked away in the corner behind rows of tall bookshelves, he checks to make sure there are no giggly teenagers in the vicinity, nods to himself, and sets his notebook down.

His confinement to the library he originally decided was going to be extremely productive has resulted in only five plot points being scribbled onto the blank page. It’s an improvement to the park, he thinks, but not so much when it’s everything that he had fixed into the storyline since before he had written the first book of trilogy.

In all honesty, he has never been to this library before. It sounds like a grave violation considering his occupation as a writer, but he doesn’t even remember the last time he was in a library. Any books he wanted to read were either gifted to him or bought by Baekhyun. Occasionally he would do a book signing in a grand public library, but most signings were usually held at book stores. Nostalgia cripples him and he suddenly remembers the times when he would spend hours hiding in the corners of libraries, back resting against the vast shelves of books, head buried deep in a fantasy novel. He remembers why he started to love writing.

Kyungsoo gathers his belongings and decides to wander around the library, a notion that feels foreign to him now. He stops in his tracks when he manages to find the Young Adult section.

He has always seen it in writing, in news headlines and bestseller charts; but seeing it in flesh and blood, with rows and rows of his works spread out in front of him, it’s a whole other experience. They have multiple copies of all his books, lined up perfectly. He notices the first book he ever wrote being displayed at the front of the section and suppresses a smile.

His fingers are running over the smooth hardcover spines of his novels when two girls walk past hugging a pile of his books to their chest.

“I’m so glad the second book was finally returned,” one of them gushes. “I’ve decided that it’s my favourite book of all time.”

“I loved that one! Especially that operation where they flew to Prague?” her friend raves. “I’m so sad that he’s decided not to write the final book.”

“It’s driving me crazy. I want to know how it ends.”

“He ended it on a cliffhanger as well!”

“His books were my favourite.”

Well after the two girls have walked away to have their books borrowed, Kyungsoo is still facing the shelf. He clutches his notebook just a little tighter.

 

 

 

☂ ☂ ☂

 

 

 

He isn’t exactly sure what brings him back to the café.

Standing in front of the glass doors with gold cursive writing printed across them, nose twitching at the smell of fresh ground coffee, he manages to convince himself that it’s only because of the coffee. And not because he wants to see a certain someone dressed in a dark-coloured trench coat with a mop of black hair that dips into his eyes and sometimes flaunts a pair of round glasses.

Kyungsoo tries his best to keep his eyes from flitting over to where he knows Jongin will most likely be sitting, leaning against patched orange, pink and aqua textile cushions, hunched over his laptop or notebook.

The café seems to have the same workers running the place everyday, because he distinctly remembers the honeyed blond hair of the cashier. He doesn’t even have to look at the barista to know it’s the one from last time because he hears a muffled chuckle when the barista sees his order.

“This time the coffee _is_ yours, just in case you weren’t sure,” the barista adds when he hands the latte over to Kyungsoo. Kyungsoo nods with an awkward laugh.

Coffee in hand and awkward interactions with the café workers over, he knows what he has to do next, as much as he’d like to avoid it.

As expected, Jongin is sitting in the exact same spot as he was four days ago.

Kyungsoo drags his feet to Jongin’s table, hands his head down and asks quietly, “Can I sit here?”

Jongin glances up from his screen, catches sight of the notebook gripped tightly in Kyungsoo’s hand and nods with slight smile. He does nothing more, and they fall into a lapse of silence.

Unlike his previous attempts of writing at different places, he is completely unaware of the silence. Ideas flow easily for the first time and the usually white page that sits in front of him mockingly for several hours is finally being filled up by lines of black ink. It’s at times like this, when he remembers what the life of an author meant to him.

It’s probably the thirteenth time he’s drafted out a different plotline for the one book, but it’s the first time he has been genuinely satisfied, and the first time he feels that he can actually write it.

His elation must’ve been painted all over his face because Jongin comments, “Well someone is happy with their plot outline.”

Normally, Kyungsoo would sneer at him, though normal Kyungsoo has been gone for a very long time because why else would he sit with Jongin in a café – not just once but _twice_? Nothing can dampen his mood at the moment though because he is too proud of himself for drafting out three pages of worthy ideas so he just smiles back at Jongin.

“Yeah, want a spoiler?”

“The audacity of you to tempt me like that.” Jongin feigns outrage.

Writing and spending too many hours with his eyes fixed to his notebook in dim lighting does strange things to Kyungsoo’s vision. When he turns to look outside the glass windows that line the front of the café from the ceiling to the floor, he swears he sees someone walk past with that dusty rose coloured hair he had seen just a couple of days ago.

His warped vision is probably what propels him to say quietly, “You know, life has a funny way of making things happen exactly when they’re supposed to.”

“What do you mean?” asks Jongin.

“I met this kid at the park, and he basically told me about how much he respects writers, and how he hates that people don’t understand them. I guess he just told me everything that I thought no one understood,” Kyungsoo shrugs.

Jongin smiles and shakes his head. He looks at Kyungsoo in the eye and holds the gaze for several long minutes, like he’s contemplating whether or not to say his next words.

“Life has funny way of making sure the right people walk into your lives at the right time,” hums Jongin. He is stretching his fingers and arms out, cracking his stiff neck and rubbing the back of it.

“What do you mean?” Kyungsoo mimics Jongin.

But unlike Kyungsoo, Jongin doesn’t explain himself. 

 

 

 

☂ ☂ ☂

 

 

 

Before Kyungsoo even realises, the month of May passes by and the sweltering heat of June has already crept its way into the Seoul breeze.

He has spent almost every day of the past three weeks in the café with his notebook, his laptop and a cup of coffee. Most days, he sticks with his lattes, but occasionally if he’s feeling a little adventurous (this rarely happens), he might order a cappuccino or an espresso. Once, Baekhyun had spent the night before attempting to convince him to embrace spontaneity and live life on the edge, and Kyungsoo had requested the cashier to surprise him with a drink. He sat down with a cherry cheesecake frappucino, and let’s say he made a mental note never to take Byun Baekhyun’s advice again.

Kyungsoo, being someone who prefers to stick to routine, wakes up at nine o’clock every morning, has breakfast at quarter past nine and is out of the house and sitting down at the regular table at the café by half past nine. Jongin, on the other hand, is less rigid and shows up at all sorts of odd times. Sometimes, he’ll already be there on his third cup of coffee by the time Kyungsoo joins him wordlessly, and other times, he will show up at ten o’clock, twelve o’clock and sometimes even half past three in the afternoon.

They never spend an entire day alone though.

By the time they’ve frequented the place for a month, Kyungsoo’s draft has accumulated a word count of over 15,000 for his first three chapters.

He refuses to believe that it’s the presence of Jongin which allows him to flourish. He tells himself that it’s definitely the ambience of the café, the bitter taste of the coffee lingering on his tongue and the encouragement from Minseok at the park.

Reality comes to mock him when Jongin releases his new novel.

“What even is this mumble jumble, how did it top the list again?” Kyungsoo slams the book down before he realises that it’s a book and that it’s precious and carefully plucks it back into his chest, caressing the cover softly and apologising for his behaviour.

Jongin shrugs, “I would offer to explain, but you wouldn’t understand anyway.”

Kyungsoo points to the cover of the novel and the printed block lettering titling Bled Gold and raises his eyebrows. “Seriously though? You named it after a colour again?”

“In my defence, I, and the rest of intelligent population view only colours as being fitting to describe the complexity of the human condition,” Jongin challenges, raising his hand up at Kyungsoo.

There Jongin goes again with his words. “Do you mean pretentious and arrogant people with no taste in literature,” coughs Kyungsoo. Jongin rolls his eyes at him and shakes his head, shrugging his shoulders in resignation.

“Don’t hate us cause you ain’t us,” retorts Jongin.

It’s a remarkably juvenile line from Jongin. Kyungsoo doesn’t miss the chance to taunt, “And here you’re telling me you don’t read Young Adult books.”

“For the last time,” Jongin’s tone is weary and exasperated. “I don’t read Young Adult books. I would never force myself to go through that misery.”

“Okay.”

“I’m being serious.”

“I believe you,” Kyungsoo nods. He really doesn’t.

There’s a topic that they always skirt around and fail to mention. Kyungsoo isn’t sure what it is that keeps him from asking the question, but everytime he thinks about it, there is a strange pressure on his heart. He convinces himself that it’s only because he hates breaking routine and the topic will surely be breaking the conventional routine he has habitually fallen into. Jongin is the one who brings it up.

“I’m departing on a press tour and various book signings starting from next week,” says Jongin.

“Why are you telling me?” Kyungsoo asks. The voice in his mind tells him in a high-pitched voice that Jongin probably knows Kyungsoo better than he knows himself.

Jongin ignores the question and continues, “I’ll be gone for a solid month and periodically for the next.”

“Oh,” is all Kyungsoo manages.

The side of Jongin’s lips quirk up. “Try not to miss me too much.”

“I would never,” protests Kyungsoo.

“I know.”

 

 

 

☂ ☂ ☂

 

 

 

Kyungsoo no longer rolls out of bed every morning to take a trip down his street, with his laptop and notebook in hand, to push open the glass doors of the café and vacate his usual table. He has taken to exploring his surroundings beyond the dim-litted café and makes it past the corner of the block. In the absence of Jongin, his fingers no longer itch to write during the day and he finds himself wandering in the streets of Myeongdong and breathing in the nightlife and bustling crowds of Hongdae.

Though he never stays to immerse himself in the street life, always returning to the navy walls of his apartment and his swivel chair, turning on his laptop.

It’s another one of those nights where Kyungsoo is suffering through writer’s block.

To be more specific, it’s another one of those nights where Kyungsoo has glued himself on his swivel chair, notebook splayed out in front of him and fingers resting on his keyboard. There are a plate of chocolate chip cookies sitting next to him – courtesy of Baekhyun who has founded a new passion of baking in lieu of his currently non-existent editing job – and a mug of cold milk. The food remains untouched as Kyungsoo racks his brain, reaches into all the hidden corners, for a small starting point to form his ideas into tangible words.

As he watches the clock tick second by second, and the hands move closer towards the next day, he wonders how he ever managed to break through all the time he’s experienced writer’s block in the past. He chalks it down to be the never-ending phone calls of Baekhyun’s frantic voice crackling through and bursting his eardrums. Kyungsoo realises that although he may have convinced himself he hated the bed times at four o’clock in the morning and the scalding burn of coffee at the back of his throat, deep down, he loved the stress. He works well with stress, rides on the tails of stress and turns it into success.

Just as the minute hand is about to move to eight and Kyungsoo considers shutting his laptop lid and calling it a night under his penguin covers, his phone buzzes on the desk.

He picks it up to read the new text message and he has to read it three times before he even registers who the sender is and it takes another four reads for the message to sink in.

`Hurry up and finish your goddamn book, it’s boring topping all the bestsellers lists without a rival.`

He doesn’t reply, but he does, however, throw his phone down and proceed to type away at the keyboard. His eyes note, with a half a mind, at the white screen being filled up with words, that he has managed to force out much more than he initially thought he would manage to tonight. But the ideas and the drive in his fingers don’t stop there.

For the first time since Jongin was whisked away on promotions for his novel which doesn’t even need any sort of publicity, he writes without interruptions. Kyungsoo doesn’t stop every two words to scour the thesaurus for a perfect word or the best way to write a sentence, doesn’t second guess himself every three lines. He just writes. It’s refreshing.

The clock strikes three o’clock in the morning the moment Kyungsoo tacks on his final full-stop and deems chapter four done. Out of a courtesy, he deliberates whether he should call up Baekhyun at the untimely hour but decides fuck it because the editor had the nerve to be flattered over the fact that Kim Jongin reads the books Kyungsoo writes.

Baekhyun tries to hide the venom in his voice with a very thick layer of fatigue when he groans, “I swear, Kyungsoo, if this isn’t a life or death situation, it will be a death situation the next time I see you.”

“Baek, if I send this to you, can you tell me if I’m going in the right direction?” asks Kyungsoo quietly. He can imagine the way Baekhyun’s lips are pulling into a wide smile on the other side of the phone right now.

“You know I’d do that anytime,” he replies. He stays on the line the entire time it takes for him to read through the draft of the first four chapters and Kyungsoo sits on his hands to keep himself from biting on them. Kyungsoo is just about ask him if he’s done yet when Baekhyun says, “It’s better than you’ve ever done before, I can’t believe you doubted yourself.”

Kyungsoo laughs nervously, “Thanks.”

“Can I ask you a question though?” He thinks Baekhyun is going to ask him about certain scenes and plot points, and he starts reaching for a pen and flipping his notebook to take notes when the question catches him off guard.

“What changed your mind?”

 


	3. part iii

 

At an age it really should not be happening at, Kyungsoo suffers through a midlife crisis.

Someone he has spent a good seven years hating and making it his life mission to convince everyone else to hate too has, in the span of six months, become the person he spends entire days with. Even the usually dim-witted Sehun has caught onto the gist that maybe the famous arch-nemeses aren’t so arch-nemesis anymore. If that doesn’t say something, then Kyungsoo is not sure what does.

“Sehun thinks you two are dating,” Baekhyun had said matter-of-factly when he’d dropped by Kyungsoo’s apartment one evening with his conventional salad dinners. “Jongin doesn’t hang around with anyone. I think he’s very proud of the fact that he is Jongin’s only friend.”

“Gross,” Kyungsoo had rightfully gagged. “I would never have such bad taste.”

Afterwards though, Kyungsoo became increasingly aware of the routine he has so willingly and easily fallen into. It’s beyond him how it has come to the extent where days without being around Jongin would feel odd, like something was amiss. Kyungsoo still tries to convince himself that the whole arrangement is only to help him write his novel.

He would be fooling no one if he said that he didn’t write best when he was around Jongin.

Ideas come flowing faster than he can document them and it’s a very rare occurrence that he will go back to change them. He thinks up of all sorts of dialogue, witty one-liners and heart-wrenching conversations that take up several pages. Although he will never admit it to Jongin, he thinks that his words flow a little smoother and his sentences sound a little nicer and more beautiful. Those pretentious highbrow phrases must be rubbing off on him.

It also helps when Jongin casually drops in comments every so often. Surprisingly, he had detailed analyses of each of the characters and he inputs a many points of characterisation. A bit of dialogue here and an emotional reaction there.

“It’s surprising how attuned you are to these characters. Don’t tell me you actually indulge in reading Young Adult,” Kyungsoo snickers.

“Shut up.”

He does earnestly appreciate it though. It’s always more helpful to have two minds rather than one, and it helps prevent him from falling into periods of writer’s block that he would prefer to keep away for as long as possible.

Kyungsoo, however, is unable to input anything into Jongin’s works.

“I don’t really think the way you do,” he apologises. The moment his head is lowered down and facing the sleek surface of the café table, he braces himself for Jongin’s oncoming arrogance. A puff of the chest and a smirk, then a six minute long monologue about his unique talents. What Kyungsoo gets is far from what he expects.

“Not many people do,” Jongin says instead. “If I’m being honest I don’t really know why people read my books.”

The silence that follows is stifling. Something eats away at Kyungsoo, and he can’t bring himself to say anything. Somewhere, in the back of his mind, he’d always known that the person behind the award-winning novels would be like this. But when he looks at Jongin and the glasses resting on his nose bridge, takes in the curve of his mouth and all confidence that comes with his demeanour, Kyungsoo can’t seem to find that vulnerability.

Opposite him, Jongin’s face shifts, clearing his throat like he has left himself stripped open for a minute too long. He manages a curt nod and immerses himself back into the computer screen.

Less than five minutes later, the man who had said those self-deprecating words is lost amongst the quiet chatter and buzzing ambience. Jongin’s voice has returned to being permanently coated with amusement and conceit, but the fleeting image of his face full of raw honesty still burns bright in Kyungsoo’s mind.

 

 

 

☂ ☂ ☂

 

 

 

“So why did you start writing?”

Jongin’s voice echoes through the night. They are walking down the street towards Kyungsoo’s apartment, hands buried deep in their pockets. Both of them had worked until their fingers were sore and all the last customers had already trickled out of the café. The last remaining worker had scratched the back of his neck awkwardly and asked if they could leave so he could lock the place up and go home.

“It was a talent, I guess,” Kyungsoo shrugs. “Something to escape my mundane life. Nothing overly dramatic.”

It has been raining. The street lights illuminate the damp streets with a warm glow that chases away the dark bitter cold numbing his fingers. Their shadows fall into one another, Kyungsoo’s shorter stature lost within the blurry outlines of Jongin’s coat.

“Fuck, it’s cold.” Kyungsoo rubs his fingers together and blows puffs of hot air on them, snuggling further into his black turtleneck.

“Do you want my gloves?” Jongin asks. Kyungsoo shakes his head but Jongin is already peeling them off. He reaches for Kyungsoo’s hands and balances them gently, slipping on one glove at a time. The places where Jongin’s fingers rest on Kyungsoo’s burn, and Kyungsoo thinks that it’s not only from the warmth that the fingers carry.

“Thanks,” Kyungsoo says gratefully as he stretches his fingers into them. They walk together in silence. And then Kyungsoo asks quietly, “What about you?”

“I’m not cold,” is Jongin’s response. He’s looking down at the ground, watching his feet drag him forward step by step.

“I wasn’t asking about that,” Kyungsoo says. “Why did you start to write?”

When Jongin looks at him, Kyungsoo sees an entire story behind the pair of dark brown eyes. The pupils are a black hole of loneliness, rimmed with fatigue and pinpricks of silver that Kyungsoo has always missed.

Jongin doesn’t speak for a very long time.

And he doesn’t need to, because every passing second he spends standing there, Kyungsoo is slowly prying away another one of his layers. He has told stories for over ten years now, and he thinks now that he can tell the one standing in front of him.

Jongin has always been lonely, that’s why he started writing. He sees the world in a different way; he sees the way cracks line the sky and he knows that if you blink, you’ll miss the way it shatters. He has always had thoughts but he has never had stories. It makes him insecure. He loves the way Kyungsoo’s books can take readers on a journey to escape their own lives while his books are just a reflection of the lives he sees of people on the streets. They’re normal, and they’re boring. Most of all, they’re not stories. They’re, like Kyungsoo has often described, just incoherent thoughts strung together to become an excuse of literature.

It’s nearing ten o’clock and he is standing under a street lamp shivering in the middle of November when Kyungsoo finally realises.

Kim Jongin hides behind his trench coats and smirks. He deludes himself and the rest of the world into thinking his books are “art.” And it works, most of the time.

“I admire the fact that you can take words and craft it into a story,” Jongin admits. He looks down at his hands, long and slender. “I don’t have words. I don’t tell stories.”

He stands on the deserted street and looks up at the sky, like he is searching for something. Stars. Kyungsoo would know, because he has been searching for them too. At twenty-seven years old though, standing ten minutes away from the entrance of his apartment, he thinks that he has looking in the wrong place for all his life. In the city, where light pollution clogs up the air, it’s impossible to find stars in the sky. You find stars in people, burning brilliantly behind layers of darkness. He doesn’t know if Jongin has, but Kyungsoo realises he has found his stars.

He grabs Jongin’s face and pulls it toward himself. He thinks that Jongin looks the most beautiful like this, when his face is devoid from the usual arrogance and the shadows cast from the angles of the lamp lights reveal a fragility that Kyungsoo has only ever caught brief glimpses of.

“You _have_ words. You use words to paint art.”

It’s genuinely easy for his mind to stretch in all directions and concoct wild adventures and chaotic emotions for fabricated characters to struggle with. And though he has the imagination, he doesn’t have the words.

People are always bogged down by the words of what they read. If they sound nice, if they don’t. It’s always been drilled into everyone’s mind the importance of using similes and metaphors, and the unbelievable breath of bewilderment that occurs when something is told so beautifully through the use of juxtaposition and symbolism. If Kyungsoo was to be really honest, that is why he started to hate writing. He has never had words, and he will never have words.

Maybe it’s why he hates Kim Jongin so much.

Maybe it’s why he says his next words.

“You might not know it, but I have always aspired to write beautifully like you.”

They are so close their noses are almost touching. Kyungsoo can feel Jongin’s breath on his face and he smells of coffee and cake and fresh parchment paper. Kyungsoo’s heart is racing so fast, threatening to explode out of his ribcage. He has felt adrenaline before, in the many times he has been angry or nervous before the release of a novel, but he has never felt like this. The rush makes him catch his breath and it pushes Kyungsoo to press his lips to Jongin’s. Jongin’s lips are cold but they’re smooth, and they’re everything that Kyungsoo expects.

The kiss is short and chaste, but it’s all they need.

Jongin takes Kyungsoo’s hand, slipping his fingers through and intertwining them as they walk the rest of the way to Kyungsoo’s apartment in silence, only an occasional sound of a car rushing past on the main road miles away. He notices that they do a lot of things in silence. Their relationship is made up of silence. But Kyungsoo isn’t afraid, because silence is peaceful and comfortable. Silence, in its own way, is beautiful.

“Stay.” Kyungsoo’s voice is quiet in the darkness of his apartment. He tightens his grip on the retreating figure who is facing the door, one hand on the knob ready to turn it and leave.

Jongin doesn’t reply, but he toes off his shoes and slips his trench coat off. He lets Kyungsoo lead him through the apartment into his bedroom.

That night, neither of them feel the frigid weather of autumn welcoming winter.

 

 

 

☂ ☂ ☂

 

 

 

Four fifths of the way through working on his book, Kyungsoo hits a wall. Figuratively.

The thing with writer’s block is, it comes when you least expect it. It’s not something that creeps up on you, a slow draining of ideas and words. One day, you will wake up and look at your manuscript, read over your ideas and find yourself stuck in a rut. You lose all your thoughts in a split second and your fingers are paralysed.

For Kyungsoo, writer’s block also means his eyes adopt lenses that force him to see his work as rubbish and nothing but rubbish.

“I can’t do it,” Kyungsoo breathes through the phone. “I thought I could, but I can’t. It’s terrible, I should never have tried.”

His heart is pounding at a million beats per minute and he feels like his stomach might burst at any moment. His hands are shaking so much he is surprised he can even keep the phone in his grip and not smashed on the floor.

“Calm down,” Jongin attempts to instruct to no avail.

“I don’t know why I thought I could do it. Everything that comes out is just rubbish.” He opens his laptop frantically and decides, “I’m going to delete this.”

“Kyungsoo, stop, listen to me,” Jongin raises his voice, it’s strong and it’s steady, but it also leaks of frustration. “Kyungsoo. Step away from your laptop.”

Kyungsoo is so focused on trying to open up his folders and erase the file that he doesn’t hear Jongin swearing on the other side of the line and hanging up in a rush.

Some part of his mind still tries to salvage the draft. A tiny voice cries for him to read through his work and reconsider his decision. But every line he reads just makes him cringe even more and hardens his resolution.

His finger is hovering over the delete key in his recycle bin when his bedroom door bursts open and the laptop is ripped away from his grasp. Jongin swiftly recovers the file before shutting it down. He throws his arms around Kyungsoo and presses him to his chest, stroking his back rhythmically, until he calms down and reverts to his regular breathing patterns.

Jongin kisses his forehead softly, lips brushing against Kyungsoo’s skin like feathers.

“Don’t you dare scare me like that again,” Jongin whispers to his temple.

“Were you more worried about the book or me?”

“The book, of course,” Jongin answers, rolling his eyes. “I love you but not that much.”

“Could you repeat that?” Kyungsoo reaches for his phone to record Jongin.

“You wish.”

Kyungsoo recalls the fateful day over three years ago when dark clouds had marred the sky and his greatest fear had come true. Jongin and Kyungsoo had been forced to sit beside each other. The Jongin he had met then, nose permanently turned up with the thrill of recently beating Kyungsoo on the bestsellers list, is more or less a stranger to him now. His features are still as sharp, but his edges have smoothed. Kyungsoo will never admit, but he is grateful that Jongin mustered the courage to knock on his apartment door and contradict the image that he had curated for himself.

Then Kyungsoo remembers.

“How did you get in?” he asks with narrowed eyes.

Jongin rocks back and forth on his feet as he avoids the sharp gaze. His shoulders are hunched up and his hands are shoved in his pockets. “I may or may not have borrowed your spare key the other day.”

Kyungsoo raises his eyebrows. “Did you ever plan on returning it?”

“That is a good question,” Jongin pauses and then adds as an afterthought, “Borrow permanently.”

“You mean stealing,” Kyungsoo corrects, voice flat.

“No, borrow permanently,” Jongin protests. He is scandalised by Kyungsoo’s accusation.

Jongin refuses to return Kyungsoo’s laptop, and spends the rest of the afternoon sitting on the swivel chair and reading through the entire draft. Kyungsoo waits, curled up in a ball on his bed, trying his hardest to keep from biting his nails. He hears the clock hung up on the wall tick second by second. They stay like that for a long time, until the sun sets and the room becomes dark.

Sometime during the wait for Jongin to finish reading, Kyungsoo falls asleep.

The time reads eight-thirty when he is slowly shaken awake by Jongin.

“Baekhyun dropped by with some food,” he says. “Do you want to have dinner?”

The sight of two places set on the dining table surprises him.

“How did he know to order enough for two?”

“I think he originally planned to eat with you, but he saw me and disappeared with a glint his eyes,” Jongin laughs. “I explained the situation to him, and I think he is a little upset you didn’t call him.”

Kyungsoo wonders when Jongin started to be the first person he called and relied on instead of Baekhyun. It has crept up on him in the past few months and when he looks at Jongin, he finds that he no longer flares with anger, but the places where animosity used to burn at him have been replaced with soft warmth.

“What are you looking at?” Jongin asks.

“Nothing,” Kyungsoo says immediately, pulling the chair out and seating himself before Jongin can catch a glimpse of the red spreading across his cheeks.

Jongin speaks up about fifteen minutes in. The words have been itching his mouth. “I finished reading the draft and I think it’s the best you’ve ever written. You’re so close, you can’t give up now.”

“I panicked,” Kyungsoo murmurs, nodding. “I think I’ll take a break.”

“I’ll join you. Want to head to Bora Bora?” Jongin suggests as he pulls out his phone, ready to dial Sehun and ask him to purchase plane tickets.

Kyungsoo recalls their conversation three weeks ago out on the glistening pavement, remembers the way Jongin gazed at the sky, and shakes his head.

“I have a better idea. Let’s go to Jeju,” Kyungsoo says. When Jongin looks at him like a deer caught in headlights, Kyungsoo smiles softly, “The best places to find stars are closer than you think.”

 

 

 

☂ ☂ ☂

 

 

 

Days, weeks and months later, Kyungsoo finishes his novel.

It’s hours past the closing time of the café and the sky outside has already darkened to a deep shade of indigo. He spends a good thirty minutes or so tweaking the ending line so it captures the mood he wants to create and closes the trilogy on the perfect note.

“It’s done,” Kyungsoo’s voice is shaking, caught between disbelief and relief. At first, he just pauses, frozen in the moment. Then he saves the finished draft and buries his face in his hands.

Jongin breaks away from concentrating on his own work and cocks his head to the side with a proud grin. “Well, that wasn’t as hard as you had expected it to be, was it?”

“Shut up,” scowls Kyungsoo, but the irritation quickly disappears from his face. He thinks that he might start crying out of joy.

There’s only a single worker left, and he gives both of them each a slice of chocolate cake as a celebratory gift. They clink their refilled coffee cups – only writers would be able to empathise with taking caffeine at these late hours – and eat their cake in silence.

“We’ll finally be fighting for number one again,” Jongin slips casually when he finishes chewing on his last mouthful of the fluffy cake.

“What?”

“It just so happens that I’ve just written the last line of my new book.” Jongin says smugly as flips his laptop around to show Kyungsoo.

“How did you write another one so quickly.” The fork slips from Kyungsoo’s grip. His eyes flit to the corner of the screen and notices that the word count is quite hefty as well. Way to ruin his jubilation.

Jongin waves it off as he shifts the screen away from Kyungsoo to prevent him from reading it. “This one has been in my drafts for almost ten years now, I just never really had an ending.”

“Can I read it?” asks Kyungsoo.

“No, it’s a surprise.” He can’t read the look on Jongin’s face.

 

 

 

☂ ☂ ☂

 

 

 

Their works line the storefronts together.

Jongin makes a show of buying thirteen copies of Kyungsoo’s novel and demands for each of them to be signed with a different message. Kyungsoo, however, is thoroughly unimpressed by the gesture.

“I’m just really, really excited,” says Jongin. “I’ve been waiting for this for a long time, you know!”

“You’ve also already read most of it,” Kyungsoo responds. “Now that I remember, aren’t you someone who hates spoilers?”

“Spur of the moment,” Jongin defends. “I’m also not the one who asked for ideas about dialogue and characterisation every two seconds though.”

When the rest of the world finally reads the ending line on page 427 and flips to the ‘Author’s Acknowledgements’ page, they will blink twice, and pinch themselves. They will show it to the person beside them and ask them to read aloud the printed words, and even then, they will still not believe what their ears are hearing. Because what will be written as the first line is a thank you note to Kim Jongin, award-winning author, trench coat enthusiast, all around pretentious extraordinaire; but most of all, Kyungsoo’s sworn enemy.

Kyungsoo thinks that beats any outrageous act of support that Jongin can pull off. As always, he is wrong about everything relating to Jongin.

When his book is released a week later (Jongin argued that he should let Kyungsoo have an entire week of glory), Kyungsoo is gifted a signed copy with a personalised message from Jongin that asks him not to sue him after he finishes the book. He begrudgingly flicks past the title page and forces himself to suffer through Jongin’s newest terrible idea. Even though Kyungsoo might spend day and night thinking about Jongin and the curve of his lips when he smiles, Kyungsoo still doesn’t appreciate the man’s novels at all.

Four and a half pages in though, he’s already a slave to the book. It’s not like anything Jongin has written before. He details his loneliness growing up, his realisation of the beauty of words and portrays the way he fell in love with them. He writes about the first time he felt his pride and talent being threatened by a storyteller who wrote with pure honesty and crafted characters and worlds that swept readers on an emotional journey. He pens down their rivalry and, ultimately, their closure.

 _Translucence_ , as he has titled the work, is his autobiography.

In the acknowledgements, he thanks Kyungsoo, who taught him that stars were not found by flying first class eleven hours halfway across the world and seen lying on perfectly white sandy beaches. Stars were found in homes that were equally as dark and mysterious as they were bright and illuminating.

After spending the entire day resting against his bedhead, legs sprawled lazily across his bed, he dials Jongin’s number once he finishes the book. When Jongin picks up, they don’t exchange greetings. They start with silence, and then Kyungsoo tells him, “I finished it.”

Jongin sucks in a breath and asks nervously, “Did you like it?”

“You found your ending,” is all Kyungsoo says through the phone.

“Yeah,” Jongin replies, smiling into the phone. “Thanks for being my ending.”

 

 

 

☂ ☂ ☂

 

 

 

There are many places Kyungsoo would rather be on a Sunday morning.

Standing in a not quite as empty but still just as messy five-level office, with a good nine hours of sleep and a plate of chocolate chip cookies in hand, is still not one of them.

Sehun, Baekhyun, Jongin and Kyungsoo are all soaking up the last few minutes of their camaraderie as they wait in front of Baekhyun’s computer for the publication of bestsellers list. Six minutes to nine o’clock, someone walks in. There are two things that surprise Kyungsoo. The first being the fact that someone other than the four people already in the room was foregoing their Sunday morning sleep-in to drop by the office; and the second being that he had no idea who the guy was. He’ll admit that he hasn’t visited the office in well over a year since he had announced his decision to resign from writing, but he doesn’t think Baekhyun would miss the opportunity to mention a new editor or author in the department.

The guy is dressed in a pale blue button up with rolled-up sleeves and skinny black jeans. He greets Sehun and Baekhyun with ease and Kyungsoo frowns. There is something all too familiar about the hair coloured rose gold and the slender nose and rounded cheeks, but Kyungsoo can’t quite place his finger onto it. Was it a description in one of his books?

“Who is this?” questions Kyungsoo.

“Intern. Kim Minseok. Director’s son. He’s just finished up his first year spring semester and he should really be out there enjoying his life but the director forced him to, quote, ‘do something useful with his life other than bruising up his body playing soccer all day,’” answers Baekhyun.

“I’m not sure if you remember but I met you at the park that time?” Minseok asks. He rubs the nape of his neck. “You seemed to be in a bit of slump back then.”

Everything clicks into place. It was his saviour. “Yeah,” chuckles Kyungsoo. “Thanks, you really helped me out there.”

Minseok laughs sheepishly and extends a hand, “It’s nice to formally meet you.”

It’s Jongin who takes the hand gratefully and shakes it vigorously three times. “Thank you for taking care of him. I am sincerely grateful as both an avid reader of his books and his boyfriend.”

“Oh my god,” Sehun gasps. He takes Baekhyun by the shoulders and shakes him back and forth. “They’re dating! I told you.”

Baekhyun blinks. “I thought we confirmed that months ago.”

“You owe me fifty,” demands Sehun, to which Baekhyun protests because he already bought him dinner three months ago for winning the bet.

He also doesn’t fail to mention, “Kyungsoo, I stuck by you and your impassioned hatred towards Kim Jongin. To think you would betray me like this.”

Kyungsoo ignores the scene and smiles warmly at Minseok, “I think you’ll make a great editor.”

Minseok thanks him and he begins to talk about his semester at college before Baekhyun exclaims, “Wait, it’s almost nine!”

All five of them crowd around the desk and huddle over the computer screen. Baekhyun pushes on the refresh key like his life depends on it when the clock reads nine o’clock. The page loads and the list prints itself in black right in the centre of the page.

“I can’t believe it,” Kyungsoo breathes.

He sees his novel title paired with his name sitting next to the number ‘2.’ The man who slides his arms around Kyungsoo’s waist has many names: his boyfriend, his friend, his enemy, and also the person who has placed first on the bestsellers chart. The one and only Kim Jongin with his pretentious titles and messes of stories.

“It’s not even that great of a book,” Kyungsoo mutters. Forget that he spent the past few weeks wrapped up in his blankets rereading it over and over again. Forget that the ending was an ode to him. Forget that he also cried multiple times as he flipped through those last pages.

“The rest of the world seems to think so,” Jongin quips.

“One day you are actually going to be the reason I stop writing. And maybe in the middle of series,” threatens Kyungsoo.

That has all the arrogance disappearing from Jongin’s face as he throws his arm around Kyungsoo and presses him to his chest. He offers, “I’ll buy you dinner and take you to Bora Bora.”

“Also let me be number one next time,” Kyungsoo demands.

“Fine.”

 

  

 

☂ ☂ ☂

 

 

 

_(Jongin has words. Kyungsoo has stories. Perhaps that’s why they don’t get along with each other._

 

_Perhaps that’s why they fit perfectly together.)_

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **A/N:** I hope you enjoyed reading that and it won’t a complete waste of time ;A; and especially to the prompter I hope you think I did your idea justice because I remember going through the hundreds of prompts and this was the only one that really stuck out to me and I couldn’t bear not writing it! (this was meant to be more crack i’m so sorry) also thank you to my beta who was there for me through thick and thin and helped me get through writing this during exam period OTL i love you  <3


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